Chapter 53 – The Accidental Smite

【Ise PoV】

The spiky guy was back in my face.

I’d literally just sat down again, hood pulled back up, trying to pretend the last five minutes didn’t happen. The crowd was still losing their minds, chanting something I couldn’t make out. Leo was being helped to his feet by some medics. Everything was calming down. Then Malakor’s armored form shot up from the arena floor like a rocket, his trajectory locked directly onto me.

Again.

What was his deal? Didn’t he just bow and leave? I thought we were done here. He was hovering maybe three feet away now, his horned helmet tilted at an angle that screamed unhinged. His hand was outstretched, clawed fingers reaching toward my hood. Was he trying to unmask me? Dude, I already did that myself.

My hand moved on pure instinct.

It was the same motion I’d use to swat a mosquito buzzing near my ear at night, that automatic reflex when something gets too close to your face. My palm came up fast, aimed right at his chest plate. Just a little shove, a “get out of my personal space” kind of push. My brain, still foggy and half-dreaming about sushi, forgot one crucial detail.

I forgot to limit the output.

The wooden joints of the puppet body groaned, a sound like old floorboards under too much weight. My arm snapped forward with the force of a hydraulic press, faster than I meant it to, harder than I wanted. The air itself seemed to compress, folding inward toward my palm. Then it erupted.

A wave of pure mana exploded from my hand.

It was blue, bright and cold, a tsunami of raw energy that didn’t belong in this world. The light was blinding, turning the entire stadium into a snapshot of frozen daylight. I felt the recoil in my shoulder, a bone-deep shudder that rattled through the puppet’s frame. The wave hit Malakor dead center.

He didn’t scream.

He didn’t have time. One second he was there, armored and imposing, his hand still reaching for me. The next second he was gone. Not blown back. Not knocked aside. Gone. Vaporized. Reduced to nothing but a faint shimmer of displaced air and a smell like burnt ozone. The mana wave didn’t stop. It punched through the空 where Malakor had been and kept going, roaring upward in a pillar of blue light.

It hit the clouds.

The sky split open like torn fabric, a perfectly circular hole carved through the overcast. Sunlight poured through the gap, a spotlight illuminating the arena floor. The mana wave dissipated somewhere in the upper atmosphere, leaving only a fading trail of blue sparks. The wind stopped. The birds went silent. Even the crowd, thousands of people packed into the stands, made no sound.

I blinked.

My vision was still adjusting, purple afterimages dancing across my sight. I looked at my outstretched hand, then at the空 where spiky armor guy had been hovering. Then at the hole in the clouds, perfectly circular, like someone had taken a cookie cutter to the sky.

“Did I get the bug?”

My voice sounded too loud in the silence, echoing off the stone walls. I tried to lower my arm, suddenly very aware of how awkward I looked just standing there with my hand up. My shoulder joint creaked. Then it made a sound I really didn’t like.

Crack.

My arm fell off.

Not like it went limp or dislocated. It literally detached, the wooden shoulder joint snapping clean off. The limb clattered to the floor of the VIP box, fingers still outstretched, like it was waving goodbye. I stared at it. Then I stared at the stump where my arm used to be. A faint blue glow was leaking from the joint, wisps of mana curling out like steam.

Oh no.

Another crack echoed from my torso, louder this time. I looked down and watched a spiderweb of fractures spread across the puppet’s chest, glowing lines of blue light tracing the cheap wood and clay. The vessel was breaking. The mana I’d just pushed through it, that massive, uncontrolled wave, had been way too much. This body wasn’t built for that kind of output. It was built for sitting still and looking mysterious, not for smiting demonic warlords.

Snap.

My left leg gave out, the knee joint splitting in half. I stumbled, catching myself on the railing with my remaining arm. More cracks formed, spreading up my neck and down my spine. The blue light was getting brighter, pouring out of every fracture like I was a broken glow stick. The crowd finally found their voices, a rising tide of screams and gasps.

Pop.

The puppet’s jaw came loose, hanging at a wrong angle. My vision started to white out, the world around me bleaching into nothingness. I could feel my actual body somewhere else, somewhere far away on the mountain, stirring as the connection to this vessel collapsed. The last thing I saw before everything went white was Leo’s face in the arena below, pale and horrified.

The puppet disintegrated.

The wood turned to splinters, the clay to dust, all of it scattering on the wind like cherry blossoms. The blue light flared one final time, a blinding pulse that forced everyone in the stadium to look away. When it faded, the VIP box was empty. No puppet. No hooded figure. Just a pile of sawdust and a faint scorch mark on the floor.

I was gone.

And somewhere on a distant mountain, I woke up in my actual body, staring at the ceiling of my room, wondering what the hell I’d just done.

【Leo PoV】

The Master was gone.

The VIP box was empty, just a scatter of wood chips and dust where he’d been standing. The hole in the clouds above us was already starting to close, the edges drifting back together like the sky was healing itself. The crowd was in chaos, people screaming, crying, praying. Some were trying to climb down into the arena, reaching toward the spot where Malakor had ceased to exist.

My legs wouldn’t move.

I stood there, frozen, my mind struggling to process what I’d just witnessed. The Master had been here. In the underworld. Watching us. Watching me. And I’d called out to him like an idiot, exposing him to thousands of people. Then he’d unmaked himself, shown his face to the world, all because I’d begged him to stay.

And then he’d killed Malakor with a single gesture.

Not a technique. Not a spell. Just a swat, the kind of casual motion you’d use to brush away a fly. And Malakor, the demon general who’d been toying with us like we were children, had been erased from existence. No body. No remains. Just gone. The power difference wasn’t a gap. It was an ocean. A void so vast I couldn’t even see the other side.

Jin collapsed beside me, his legs finally giving out. He was still clutching the broken sword, his knuckles white on the hilt. His eyes were unfocused, staring at nothing. I knew that look. It was the same one I’d seen in the mirror after my first real training session with Master Siegfried. The look of someone whose understanding of the world had just been shattered and rebuilt in a shape they didn’t recognize.

“He was here.”

Jin’s voice was barely a whisper, thin and fragile. He wasn’t talking to me. He was talking to himself, trying to make it real.

“The Master was here, and I… I swung a sword he made. I used his gift, and he saw me.”

His hands started shaking, the sword clattering against the stone. Tears welled up in his eyes, spilling over and cutting clean tracks through the dirt on his face. He wasn’t crying from pain or fear. It was something else. Overwhelming gratitude. The kind that crushed you under its weight.

I understood.

I dropped to my knees beside him, my own vision blurring. We’d been chosen. The Master had come down from the mountain, had watched us fight, had revealed himself because of us. And now he was gone, returned to the Upper World, leaving us here in the aftermath of a miracle.

The crowd’s screaming grew louder, a wordless roar of devotion and terror. People were pointing at the sky, at the closing hole in the clouds, at the empty VIP box. Some were prostrating themselves, foreheads pressed to the ground. Others were weeping, reaching toward the heavens like they could pull the Master back down.

A shadow fell over me.

I looked up and saw the announcer, the portly man in gaudy robes, standing at the edge of the arena. His face was pale, slick with sweat, his eyes wide and glassy. He was staring at the VIP box, his mouth working silently. Then he seemed to remember his job. He raised one shaking hand, pointing at Jin and me.

“The… the victors!”

His voice cracked on the word, barely audible over the chaos. He tried again, louder this time, forcing the announcement through sheer will.

“By divine intervention, the match is decided! The winners are Leo of the Upper World and Jin of Oakhaven!”

The crowd didn’t cheer.

They were too stunned, too overwhelmed. A few people clapped mechanically, but most just stood there, staring at us like we were holy relics. Like we’d been touched by a god. I wanted to tell them we weren’t special. That we were just students, barely worthy of the Master’s time. That his presence here had nothing to do with us and everything to do with some accident we didn’t understand.

But the words wouldn’t come.

Because deep down, in a place I didn’t want to examine too closely, I wanted to believe it. I wanted to believe that maybe, just maybe, the Master had come here for me. That my struggle had been seen. That my devotion had been acknowledged. It was a selfish, foolish thought. One I knew I should crush immediately.

I held onto it anyway.

Jin was still crying beside me, his shoulders shaking. I put a hand on his back, a gesture of solidarity. We were in this together now, whether we wanted to be or not. The underworld had just witnessed the Master’s power. They’d seen a demon general erased with a casual motion. They’d seen the hole punched through the sky.

Everything was about to change.

And I had no idea if that was a good thing or a disaster waiting to happen.